Philadelphia Flyers defencemen Braydon Coburn and Andrew MacDonald each will miss approximately four weeks because of lower-body injuries.

General manager Ron Hextall made the announcement shortly after the Flyers resumed practice Friday morning.

Coburn has not played since sustaining a lower-body injury during the Flyers’ opening-night loss to the Boston Bruins. He had traveled with the team during its recent three-game road trip with the hope of returning. He had taken part in the morning skate on Oct. 18 and again on Oct. 21.

Hextall said Coburn had a setback in his recovery.

MacDonald has three points in seven games and is second in average ice time per game at 22:55.

The absences of Coburn and MacDonald, in addition to the pre-season loss of Kimmo Timonen until at least January because of blood clots, leaves the Flyers without three of their top six defencemen.

“You take two guys out of your lineup that play over 20 minutes, obviously it’s a big hole,” Hextall said, according to the Courier-Post. “Other guys got to step up. I think Nick Schultz really stepped up for us and logged some good minutes for us. That’s something that I expected at some point but I don’t think a lot of other people did.”

The Flyers also announced forward Zac Rinaldo is day-to-day with an upper-body injury sustained during the Flyers’ win against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday.